The festive season has just ended and inspite of buzzes that our world is going to end……We proudly step into 2013. Since celebrations are over and we are back into square four, let’s focus on hard core matters. Past few months has invariably been most busy time for all those involved in business and with remarkable technological advancement virtual stores are more popular than the real ones.
If you do own an online store it is the best time to go through those statistics and see what you gain in this festive season.
Oops! Is your balance sheet not that encouraging? Experiencing a set back is always better in terms of business…. You will search for the loopholes and try to work on it. A positive effort will improve your business perspectives.
There is a bombardment in the field of eCommerce and the graph is steeply rising. At present most eCommerce sites are designed in Magento platform. In such a competitive scenario it is truly a challenge to attract visitors and convert them into customers. The crucial session begins when a visitor is already there on your Magento commerce site. You need to master the skills and identify the tools to engage visitor’s attention on your site. This can be achieved by offering value to your customers and ensuring a superior online experience.
“Content is the king”: There will soon be a tussle between different features in online world and various arguments will come up in favour and in oppositions of the statement. Avoiding that tiff, we will focus on our topic and will surely stick to the fact that one of the valuable features that can help you to enrich your visitors’ online experience is unique content. Blogs, news, articles and an opportunity to offer their feedbacks will benefit in terms of engaging customers.
Including these features to your eCommerce store will come up with several advantages. Customers always prefer an interactive site and you can also modulate the site according to feedback received from them. On the more content plays a significant role to get ranked in search engine. However, you need to find out your target group and understand their interests in order to attract and entertain them. The added value is obtained from the knowledge you present through site.
Example:
A close look at jinx.com will let you know how to use content in ecommerce site. The customers of “Jinx” are usually gamers and geeks so they present materials in their site related to popular games and technologies. Customers enjoy blogs, post their comments and connect with people with similar interests through company’s own blogs. This unique approach of Jinx to promote their merchandise has become hugely popular.
Are you a little confused how to imbibe these facilities into the Magento platform?
Well there are numerous plugins present in Magento, but whether there is any appropriate plug-in and if there is one whether it will provide necessary benefits that you are looking for. Utilising plugins available in Magneto,you may easily integrate WordPress in your existing Multistore platform. A developer will simply find out and install an extension that support WordPress and uses same database as Magento.
While there are many simple ways to bring WordPress blog into Magento store, it becomes baffling when you will try to incorporate WordPress MU. Before we concentrate on the technical details of integrating WordPress Multisite in Magento Multistore; it is essential to know what this WordPress Multisite actually is.
It is actually a mode present in WordPress that allows creating network of multiple websites using same WordPress installation similar to that of Magento which can support multiple stores. This Multisite is a separate version from WordPress and is called WordPress MU (where MU denotes multi-user). WordPress MU makes it much easier to manage multiple blogs. You will require a single WordPress account, database and admin URL. Before the advent of WordPress 3.0 this multisite facility is available in separate software. With the introduction of WordPress 3.0 it has become easy to set up multi-site facility as the feature is incorporated within WordPress.
Next and most obvious question that may click in your mind is that why should you join WordPress Multisite with Magento Multistore? In case you are using a Magento Multistore, you will need to install separate WordPress for each store. It is a terrifying idea to retain and manage WordPress blog for each store and the situation is even difficult if you want to include a new store. For every new addition you will have to create a blog. It is possible when the size of store is small but soon it becomes impossible to manage these blogs.
Introducing WordPress MU in your multi-store platform will let you create several blogs from a single WordPress administrator and merge each blog with respective stores.
Once you have understood the advantages of WordPress MU in your Magento platform, the following question will be how to install WordPress Multisite into Magento? The most convenient way for a Magento Developer to integrate WordPress Multisite into a multi-store platform is to set up the extension.
This extension is available along with free WordPress integration plugin. Thus, it is apparent that you need to pay for installing WordPress MU integration extension. However, considering the benefits such an investment seems worthy.
After installing this WordPress MU integration facility you will be able to create several blogs as you may require and use the blog for store. You may also produce blogs which will not be needed by any store and can be maintained as a typical WordPress blog. If you wish, it is possible to link these blogs to any of your Magento commerce page using a method called semi-integration. This extension will also take the initiative to customise Magento platform a step further. Site owners are always in favour of customising their sites and it is advisable to do so.
However, integrating blog posts with stores will not end the job of a developer. Designing will no doubt be the most important that you cannot afford to overlook. Consider factors like
- How the customers will access the blogs?
- How to communicate new features in your site?
- How to promote new products?
- How to utilise review and tag features in Magento?
So, stress on the ecommerce site design so that customers find the information they required easily. These factors will definitely make the customers return to your e-commerce site repeatedly and even purchase items.
This article is an original contribution by William Johnson.
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